


A Moment in a Bottle

by blue_eyes_incognito



Series: Sleeping Habits [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Destiel - Freeform, Drabble, Fluff, M/M, Mornings, sleeping!Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 14:17:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1107856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_eyes_incognito/pseuds/blue_eyes_incognito
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel remembers the last time the other side of the bed wasn't so cold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Moment in a Bottle

Castiel rolled over and placed his hand on the cold, vacant place on the other side of the bed, spreading his fingers wide and flexing his palm before slowly scraping his fingertips across the sheet as he drew his hand into a desperate, tense fist that he left resting in the same spot. He looked at his hand in the empty space through half-opened, sleep-swollen eyes and exhaled a slow sigh. He knew the exact day that he had last woken up to Dean in the space where his clenched hand now rest, his fingers slowly relaxing. He rolled onto his back and looked at the ceiling for a moment before closing his eyes and opening his hand to rest his palm about where Dean's chest once rose and fell rhythmically in the space next to him. Castiel drew up the memory of the very last time he had woken up with Dean beside him.

\--

The early afternoon sun of mid-August filtered through the oak trees outside and painted splotches of liquid light and shadow across the walls and ceiling of the small room Dean and Castiel often shared. It was very late to still be asleep in bed--well past noon at this point--but Castiel refused to be the first one to get out of bed, and Dean was still snoring lightly next to him. Castiel regarded him for a moment, watching his chest rise and fall beneath the sheet, his nostrils flare slightly with each breath, and his lips move barely perceptibly as he dreamed of something that left an expression of almost uncharacteristic serenity on his face. A splash of pale sunlight illuminated a spray of freckles across the bridge of Dean's nose and his cheeks. His long eyelashes caught the light revealing almost an iridescence as his eyes darted beneath his closed eyelids. Castiel had often watched Dean as he slept, or more precisely, had often watched _over_ him. But it was rare to have the opportunity to truly study his face and regard Dean so closely without an admonition about personal space or the necessity of blinking. Dean was, without a doubt, truly beautiful.

Dean would almost certainly be awake soon; the time was already abnormally late for even Castiel to still be in bed, let alone Dean, who was typically awake and out of bed hours before the former angel. Castiel silently wished that he could stay in this moment or bottle it somehow--the nights he spent with Dean next to him had become fewer and fewer in number over the last several weeks, and the mornings that Dean's side of the bed hadn't already gone cold by the time Castiel awoke had become even more of a rarity. Castiel feared the rapid approach of the day that he would never again fall asleep with his arms around Dean or wake up to soft sunlight dancing across his lightly freckled shoulders. 

Taking care not to disturb Dean, Castiel reached for his phone. He quietly tapped through a small handful of settings, silencing all of the sounds and turning off the camera flash. No matter what happened that day or any other day, Castiel wanted to remember this moment--how he felt and how Dean looked with the hazy sunlight of an August afternoon pooling across his body through a filter of trees, so beautiful and so at peace. Castiel snapped two quick, but careful, pictures of Dean's sleeping face before tucking his phone back into its place under his pillow. He then gently shifted to curl lightly against Dean for just a few more minutes.

\--

Castiel had no way of knowing that lazy summer afternoon really would be the last time he would wake up with Dean next to him in bed, but he was nonetheless glad that he had decided to take those two quick pictures. They were his moment in a bottle, a memento of a very different time. Castiel reached under his pillow for his phone, and with a couple of quick taps and swipes, he had pulled up one of the pictures. He traced his fingers across the image, just shy of the screen. His lips formed tiny words that his voice refused to speak, but inside his mind, Castiel would forever be screaming them:

" _I miss you, Dean, and I love you._ "


End file.
